Staying Current In a Small Office Environment?

MyLongNickName writes "Less than a month ago I took a position at a smaller firm (around 50 employees) as an IT Manager. As you might expect from the size of the company, I oversee quite a variety of tasks. I come from a background of computer programming, and am definitely not a master of every function. We rely on third-party solutions providers for areas like our networking, web hosting, phone systems, etc. I am used to working in a larger environment with a large IT staff (and not just because of super sizing at McDonald's). Just the daily rubbing elbows allowed me to stay current in areas that I did not directly touch. And when I had a question, I personally knew someone who could answer my question. I am not in that environment now. How do I stay current? I don't want to be a master of every technology, but I want to be aware of trends in the industry. I want to not depend on one contractor advising me."

Comments

Amen, brother...

[Saint Aardvark]

Here are a few things that have helped me out:

• The big one: go to LISA. It can be tough convincing the boss to send their one-and-only IT guy, but it's an incredibly exciting environment. You'll learn lots, you'll meet lots, and you'll get to rub shoulders with people doing incredible things -- and people in the same boat you are.
• If you can't go to LISA, start reading their proceedings. They've just opened up everything to the public (previously you had to wait a year if you weren't a member), and there are some incredible gems to be found. The MP3s from LISA '07 weren't as good as being there would have been (sob), but they're still damned good.
• You should still get a membership in SAGE. Subscribe to the mailing lists, get a subscription to ;login:, and inhale deeply.
• Look around for professional organizations to join, or other opportunities. There's a sysadmin group at the university where I work; there's also a committee trying to figure out what the university's IT strategy should be for the next 5-10 years. I've been lucky enough to be involved with both, and they're interesting. Sure, I run a small shop, but I've rubbed shoulders with (well, envied from across the room :-) the guy in charge of a cluster of computers that'll be processing data for the ATLAS experiment.
• Start your own techy/sysadmin conference, a la LUGRadio Live. No, LUGRadio Live isn't particularly sysadmin-oriented, but I have the strong impression that the organizers just decided they wanted to hold their own conference, and they did. And if you look at the schedule for their US conference, it's got a damned impressive list of presenters. (I'm considering starting a sysadmin conference next summer in Vancouver, BC...anyone interested?)
• Other sources of info: Planet Sysadmin (disclaimer: they've got my blog in there), ONLamp, and your local LUG.

Hope this helps!

Focus on what's in your setup

[atraintocry]

I'm in much the same position, but I don't see my goal so much as keeping current, as becoming as knowledgeable as possible about the software and hardware that I have to oversee. I could care less what Yahoo! is trading at. There's security news to keep up on but we don't run any outside services, so I find that my time is better spent digging deeper into GPOs, deploying software and whatnot.

Learn as much as you can stomach about networks. Just grab one of the certification course books, like for the CCNA. You have to keep up-to-date with hardware and OS because things will change, but hopefully not too quickly, and the nice thing about being in charge of IT, is those changes happen through you.

Political though it may be, Thurrott's supersite has good info a lot of the time.